UC-NRLF 


-    -- 


LIBRARY 


A    CHILD    OF    NATURE 


BOOKS   BY  MR.  MABIE 


MY  STUDY  FIRE 

MY  STUDY  FIRE,  SECOND  SERIES 

UNDER  THE  TREES  AND  ELSEWHERE 

SHORT  STUDIES  IN  LITERATURE 

ESSAYS  IN  LITERARY  INTERPRETATION 

ESSAYS  ON  NATURE  AND  CULTURE 

BOOKS  AND  CULTURE 

ESSAYS  ON  WORK  AND  CULTURE 

THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT 

IN  THE  FOREST  OF  ARDEN 

NORSE  STORIES 

WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

A  CHILD  OF  NATURE 


rt  (\T 

.V 


A  Child  of 
Nature 


By 
Hamilton  Wright  Mabie 


Illustrations  and 
Decorations  by 

Charles  Louis   Hinton 


New  York 

Dodd,  Mead  and  Company 
1901 


LIBRARY 

DIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORKTA 
DAVIS 


First  Edition  published  October, 


•=  DODD,  MEAD  AND  Co.    .  _^ 


Copyright, 

BY  DODD,  MEAD  AND  COMPANY,  IN  THE  BOOKMAN 
AS  JOHN  FOSTER 


UNIVERSITY  PRESS    .    JOHN    WILSON 
AND    SON     .      CAMBRIDGE,   U.  S.  A. 


AND   TO    THOSE  WHO    HAVE   "GONE 

INTO   THE  WORLD   OF 

LIGHT" 


HOSTT  © 


PAGE 

u  The  delicate  melodies  which  are 
borne  on  summer  airs  through 
the  paths  of  the  woods,"  Frontispiece 

"Truth  and  beauty  bearing  a  new 
flower  on  the  ancient  stem  of 
time" 40 

"The  madness  and  the  gladness 
in  the  foaming  cup  which  life 
holds  to  its  lips"  ....  64 

"It  would  have  seemed  as  if 
nature  missed  a  familiar  pres 
ence  "  .  .100 


I 


My  Heart  leaps  up  when  I  behold 
A  Rainbow  in  the  sky  : 

So  was  it  when  my  life  began  ,- 

So  is  it  now  I  am  a  Man  ; 

So  be  it  when  I  shall  grow  old, 
Or  let  me  die  ! 

The  Child  is  Father  of  the  Man; 

And  I  could  wish  my  days  to  be 

Bound  each  to  each  by  natural  piety. 


A     CHILD 
OF    NATURE 


i 


I 

T  was  late  in  April  when  John 
Foster's  life,  long  sinking,  like 
a  flickering  flame,  suddenly 
went  out.  He  was  not  an  old 
man  so  far  as  years  went,  but  he 
had  lived  his  life  as  completely  as 
if  his  three-score  had  been  length 
ened  into  four-score  years  and  ten. 
Those  who  knew  him  best,  and 
they  were  few,  had  marked  a  sud 
den  change  not  long  before  ;  a  re 
laxation  of  purpose  in  a  face  that 
had  always  reflected  the  man's 

[3] 


A   CHILD    OF  NATURE 


mind  and  heart  swiftly  and  un 
erringly.  The  quietude  and  ac 
quiescence  that  followed  a  lifelong 
intensity  of  expression  meant  no 
surrender,  but  rather  a  fulfilment 
of  purpose ;  the  concentration  of 
nature  was  no  longer  necessary  ;  and 
the  bow,  long  bent,  sprung  swiftly 
back.  The  neighbours,  as  they 
went  silently  into  the  darkened 
room,  were  awed  by  the  victorious 
calm  which  touched  the  rugged 
features  with  something  of  supernal 
beauty.  The  face  had  been  full  of 
an  inscrutable  meaning,  but  it  had 
never  before  borne  such  an  expres 
sion  not  only  of  quiet  acceptance, 
but  of  final  peace. 
Some  of  the  older  men,  hard-handed 

[4] 


•V 


HH 


CHILD    OF  NATURE 


and  hard-minded  farmers,  whose 
life  had  been  an  unbroken  struggle 
with  -reluctant  soil  and  uncertain 
skies,  instinctively  resented  the  calm 
assurance  of  success  which  rested 
on  John  Foster's  face  like  a  deci 
sive  judgment  on  his  life.  These 
older  men  had  looked  askance  at 
their  neighbour  for  half  a  century, 
and  they  mutely  protested  against 
the  irrevocable  reversal  of  their 
judgment  which  the  touch  of  death 
had  made  clear  beyond  all  question 
ing.  To  their  unsympathetic  glance 
there  was  something  almost  im 
moral  in  this  assumption  of  success 
by  one  whose  career  had  been  an 
obvious  failure.  There  had  been  no 
evil  in  John  Foster  ;  the  hardest  of 

[5] 


A    CHILD    OF  NATURE 

the  dry-eyed  and  sober-visaged  men 
never  laid  any  such  charge  at  his 
door  ;  but  there  had  been  a  lifelong 
disregard  of  the  traditional  wisdom 
of  the  rural  community,  sometimes 
breaking  into  fiery  contempt  of  its 
prudential  philosophy  and  its  toil 
some  surrender  to  the  hardest  con 
ditions  of  its  life.  These  men  had 
never  rebelled  against  the  stubborn 
soil  that  seemed  to  bear  nothing 
graciously,  after  the  manner  of  Na 
ture  in  kindlier  climes,  but  had  to 
be  beaten  and  broken  into  fertility. 
There  was  no  fellowship  between 
them  and  their  surroundings  ;  there 
was  rather  an  unbroken  conflict ; 
Nature  must  master  them  or  they 
must  master  Nature,  and  they  never 
[6] 


A    CHILD    OF   NATURE 

stopped  work  to  discuss  the  ques 
tion    of   alternatives.       They     had 
conquered,    and    in    the    conquest 
they  found   the   only  evidence   of 
successful    living     of    which    they 
took     knowledge.       John     Foster 
scorned  both   the  process  and  the 
result ;  he  would  live  open-handed 
and  open-hearted  with  Nature  come 
what  might,  and  this  was  the  chief 
cause    of    his    offending.      "  Tears 
like  as  if  he  had  n't  cum  out  so  bad 
after  all,"  was  old   Mr.  Ferguson's 
comment    as  he    returned    to     his 
neighbours  in  the  hall,  awkwardly 
holding  his   rarely  worn,  old-fash 
ioned  silk  hat  in  his  hand ;  and  this 
seemed  to  be  the  general   opinion, 
with  an  undercurrent  of  unexpressed 


A   CHILD    OF  NATURE 


dissent    from     the    verdict    which 
John  Foster  had  taken  the  liberty, 
with  the  mighty  aid  of  death,   to 
pronounce  on  his  own  life  in  defi 
ance  of  the  judgment  of  those  who 
thought  they  knew  him  best. 
Out  of  doors  there  was  a  winning 
softness  in  the  air,  like  a  gentle  re 
pentance    for    months    of  climatic 
wrongdoing ;  winter  still  lingered, 
but  there  were   signs    that   its  icy 
hands  were  loosening  their  grip  on 
the  streams  and  fields.      In  that  re 
mote   and   hilly   country    spring  is 
always  a  late  comer,  and  it  was  an 
intangible  touch   of  colour  in   the 
sky    and    an    intangible    touch    of 
softness  in  the  atmosphere  that  be 
tokened  its  coming  at  North  Hill. 
[8] 

I$i83$3 


A    CHILD    OF   NATURE 


The  near  hills  were  still  white,  save 
the  bare  summits,  from  which  the 
fierce  winds  had  swept  the  snow. 
In  the  distance  the  circle  of  great 
peaks  were  shining  as  in  mid 
winter,  and  the  bold  outlines  of 
the  mountain  that  rose  solitary 
in  the  far  North  cut  sharply  into 
the  blue. 


. 


II 


There  was  a  time  when  meadow,  grove,  and  stream, 
The  earth,  and  every  common  sight, 

To  me  did  seem 
Apparelled  in  celestial  light. 
The  glory  and  the  freshness  of  a  dream. 


II 

NATURE  is  not  often  so 
companionable  to  the 
higher  moods,  so  indifferent  to 
the  lower  needs,  as  in  this  noble 
country,  where  the  land  shapes 
itself  into  such  sublime  pictures 
and  yields  so  reluctantly  its  mod 
icum  of  grain.  It  was  John 
Foster's  fate  to  be  alone  in  his  fel 
lowship  with  Nature,  while  all  his 
neighbours  were  fighting  the  stub 
born  fields  inch  by  inch.  It  was 
enough  for  him  that  such  minis 
tration  was  made  to  his  spirit ;  he 
was  glad  that  Nature  did  not  serve 


A    CHILD    OF   NATURE 

his  body  too  carefully  ;  he  accepted 
the  hard  fare  and  forgot  it,  as  the 
poor  student  forgets  his  poverty 
when  he  finds  himself  at  last  within 
reach  of  the  books  of  which  he  has 
dreamed.  John  Foster  could  not 
remember  a  time  when  the  cluster 
ing  hills  and  the  remote  and  solitary 
mountains  had  not  been  friendly  to 
him  ;  they  had  gathered  round  his 
childhood  as  the  stars  had  brooded 
over  it,  and  both  had  bidden  him 
welcome  and  made  him  feel  at 
home  with  them.  The  little  farm 
house  stood  on  the  ridge  of  the 
uplands,  and  on  either  hand  the 
surrounding  country  lay  spread  out 
like  a  map  to  the  far  horizons. 
To  the  north  and  west  there  were 

EH] 


A   CHILD    OF  NATURE 


long,  irregular  processions  of  hills, 
sweeping  away  in  sublime  disorder 
to  join  their  leader  in  the  far  North ; 
to  the  south  and  east  a  rolling 
country  was  divided  by  rivers  and 
dotted  with  villages.  Few  travel 
lers  crossed  the  hill  to  the  village 
that  lay  a  mile  and  more  beyond, 
and  for  the  most  part  John's  child 
hood  was  as  solitary  as  if  it  had 
been  cast  on  an  island  in  mid-seas. 
But  the  boy  never  knew  what  lone 
liness  was.  The  deserted  road,  the 
rugged  hillsides,  the  woodlands, 
were  populous  with  life;  he  knew 
all  their  ways  and  had  mastered 
all  their  secrets.  When  daisies 
were  afield  he  was  more  active, 
but  frozen  rivulets  and  drifts  of 

[15] 


A   CHILD    OF  NATURE 

snow  found  him  hardly  less  happy. 
The  deepest  truths  often  lie  sleep 
ing  in  the  heart  of  a  child  long 
before  he  knows  of  their  presence 
or  understands  what  they  say  to 
him.  He  has  subtle  perceptions 
of  the  world  about  him  which 
seem  wholly  of  the  senses,  but 
which  register  the  first  delicate 
contacts  of  his  spirit  with  Nature. 
Nothing  seems  quite  real  to  him, 
or  at  least  not  quite  complete, 
because  everything  hints  at  some 
thing  more  wonderful  and  magical 
which  is  to  come.  There  were 
days  when  John  haunted  the  woods 
and  waited  breathless  for  something 
to  happen.  What  he  expected  he 
could  not  have  described ;  he  did 
[16] 


aft 


A    CHILD    OF   NATURE 


not  know  ;  he  only  knew  that  the 
air  was  full  of  whispers;  that  all 
manner  of  secrets  were  being  ex 
changed  ;  that  there  seemed  to  be 
a  mysterious  understanding  between 
the  trees,  the  birds,  the  winds,  and 
the  clouds,  from  which  he  was  ex 
cluded  ;  not  because  there  was  any 
desire  to  shut  him  out,  but  because 
it  was  impossible  to  make  him 
understand. 

John  felt  himself  on  the  most 
friendly  footing  with  this  magical 
world,  but  the  thinnest  of  veils 
seemed  to  envelop  him  and  make 
clear  sight  impossible.  He  had  a 
teasing  sense  of  having  his  hand  on 
the  latch,  but  not  being  able  to 
open  the  door.  This  dimness  of 


A    CHILD    OF   NATURE 

vision  often  gave  the  things  which 
surrounded  him  a  touch  of  unreal 
ity  ;  to  him  as  to  the  Prince  in 
Tennyson's  charming  poem  : 

On  a  sudden  in  the  midst  of  men  and 
day, 

And  while  I  walk'd  and  talk'd  as  here 
tofore, 

I  seem'd  to  move  among  a  world  of 
ghosts, 

And  feel  myself  the  shadow  of  a  dream. 

The  boy's  imagination  was  begin 
ning  to  play  its  magical  tricks  with 
his  vision,  and  the  most  solid  things 
took  on  a  dreamlike  vagueness,  and 
the  most  unsubstantial  became  solid 
realities.  The  world  was  the  more 
beguiling  to  him  because  it  sur 
rounded  him  with  mysteries  instead 
[18] 


A    CHILD    OF   NATURE 

of  revealing  sharp  outlines  and  hard 
realities.  It  was  a  wonder  world, 
as  it  is  to  every  imaginative  child  ; 
and  he  went  through  it  with  eager 
step,  expecting  every  moment  to 
surprise  its  hidden  life  by  sudden  and 
complete  discovery.  The  stretches 
of  forest,  the  meadows,  the  hills, 
the  quiet  places  in  the  heart  of  the 
woods,  the  stars  moving  in  sublime 
procession  past  his  window,  the 
glowing  of  the  day  and  its  fading  : 
these  things  touched  his  spirit  with 
influences  so  fine  and  sensitive  that 
they  fashioned  him  without  awak 
ening  him  out  of  the  dream  of 
childhood.  Of  this  companionship 
with  the  wild  things  of  the  wood 
and  the  bright  things  of  the  sky  he 


A    CHILD    OF  NATURE 

never  spoke ;  he  could  hardly  have 
put  his  thoughts  about  them  into 
language;  in  truth,  he  did  not 
think  about  them ;  he  lived  in 
them. 


[20] 


:^j 


O8 


//  was  afresh  and  glorious  world, 
A  banner  bright  that  was  unfurled 
Before  me  suddenly  : 
I  looked  upon  those  hills  and  plains, 
And  seemed  as  if  let  loose  from  chains, 
To  live  at  liberty. 


III 


THERE  was  another  life 
which  was  as  plain  and 
straight  as  the  old  road  which  ran 
in  front  of  the  house ;  he  knew 
what  it  had  for  him  to  do  and  he 
did  it ;  it  never  once  occurred  to 
him  to  try  to  escape  from  it.  He 
seemed  born  as  much  a  part  of  it 
as  of  the  other  world  of  which 
he  never  spoke.  The  life  of  this 
tangible  world  began  very  early  in 
the  morning  and  ended  when  the 
light  faded;  and  it  was  filled 
with  all  manner  of  things  to  be 
done ;  that  miscellaneous  work 


NS* 


II    A    CHILD    OF  NATURE    iH 

which  falls  to  a  boy  on  a  farm. 
Whenever  his  feet  could  save  the 
feet  of  a  man,  his  feet  made  the 
journey  to  the  mill  or  the  black 
smith's  forge  or  the  country  store ; 
whenever  his  hands  could  save  a 
man's  hands,  his  hands  did  the 
work.  He  was  at  everybody's  beck 
and  call ;  and  he  knew  no  higher 
wisdom  than  to  serve  every  one  as 
he  could.  Unconsciously  he  was 
grounding  himself  in  reality  at  the 
very  moment  when  reality  was  be 
ginning  to  have  secondary  meanings 
for  him. 

His  surroundings  were  plain  to  the 
point  of  bareness  ;  for  the  farm  was 
niggardly  in  disposition  ;  the  house 
was  full  of  children  ;  there  were  so 


p3£i 

jSiJ 

•HI 


A    CHILD    OF   NATURE 


many  bodies  to  be  fed  and  clothed 
that  there  was  little  left  for  the 
nurture  and  furnishing  of  the  mind. 
There  was  no  touch  of  romance  in 
the  work  or  the  home ;  there  were 
few  books  to  read,  and  these,  with 
a  single  exception,  had  nothing  to 
say  to  the  boy  who  had  found  that 
another  and  a  finer  crop  could  be 
taken  off  the  farm,  if  one  knew 
how  to  harvest  it.  There  was  little 
in  common  between  the  world  in 
which  the  boy  worked  and  the 
world  in  which  he  lived.  He  passed 
through  the  first  in  a  kind  of  dream, 
doing  with  mechanical  fidelity  what 
was  set  as  his  task ;  in  the  second 
he  was  alert,  eager,  expectant,  as  if 
a  moment's  inattention  might  cost 

[35] 


A    CHILD    OF   NATURE 

him  something  on  which  his  heart 
was  set.  Nobody  could  find  fault 
with  him,  but  nobody  predicted 
success  of  any  kind  for  him;  he 
seemed  like  one  of  that  vast  com 
pany  who  serve  the  world  in  silence 
and,  having  had  not  such  wages  as 
they  earned,  but  as  the  world  chose 
to  give  them,  quietly  vanish  and 
are  seen  no  more.  If  the  boy  had 
ambitions,  he  never  spoke  of  them  ; 
when  a  day's  work  was  done  he 
passed  on  as  if  he  never  expected 
to  gain  anything  from  it ;  of  the 
future  he  seemed  to  have  no 
thought ;  he  paid  for  the  right  to 
live,  and  having  settled  his  account 
with  the  actual,  escaped  at  once 
into  the  world  where  his  heart  was. 

[26] 


A    CHILD    OF  NATURE 


His  body  was  often  at  work  while 
his  mind  was  at  play  ;  for  birds  sang 
over  the  meadows  as  he  did  his 
chores,  and  over  the  harvest  field 
there  was  always  the  arch  of  the 
sky,  with  room  enough  for  a  boy's 
soul  to  range  in  and  a  boy's  heart  to 
make  its  home. 


[27] 


To  her  fair  works  did  Nature  link 
The  human  soul  that  through  me  ran 


\ 


IV 


un- 


HOWEVER  silent  and 
interested  he  might  be  on 
the  farm,  he  was  alive  to  the  tips 
of  his  fingers  in  the  woods.  The 
moment  he  crossed  the  invisible 
boundary  into  the  territory  of  Na 
ture  he  awoke  as  if  out  of  sleep  ; 
his  face  was  full  of  expectancy  ;  his 
eyes  were  everywhere;  his  body 
seemed  to  be  instinct  with  intelli 
gence,  so  alert  was  his  attitude  and 
so  quick  were  his  movements.  All 
his  senses,  in  their  intentness,  com 
bined  to  develop  a  sixth  and  higher 
sense,  compounded  of  sight,  hear- 

[31] 


A   CHILD    OF  NATURE 

ing,  touch,  smell,  taste  ;  which  in 
some  mysterious  way  seemed  to 
mingle  the  life  of  the  body  and  of 
the  spirit  into  one  indivisible,  un 
conscious,  throbbing  life;  he  lived 
not  on  the  surface  of  the  world, 
where  a  thousand  beautiful  appear 
ances  flashed  upon  his  vision  and 
then  vanished,  but  in  the  deep, 
flowing,  invisible  life  of  Nature. 
Like  the  older  myth-makers,  he 
was  caught  up  in  the  universal 
movement  of  things  and  borne 
aloft  into  ecstasies  of  vision.  If  he 
had  understood  his  own  emotions 
or  been  able  to  give  them  speech, 
he  would  have  fashioned  out  of  his 
dreams  and  the  deep  joys  of  his 
spirit  a  figure  as  elusive,  as  spon- 

[32] 


jg* 

vH, 


A    CHILD    OF   NATURE 

taneous,  as  mysterious  as  Dionysus  ; 
in  whom  was  embodied  not  only 
the  ripe  glow  of  the  wine,  but  the 
freedom,  the  spontaneity,  the  leap 
ing  vitality,  the  power  of  abandon, 
the  radiant  genius  of  the  liberated 
imagination.  All  these  things  were 
in  his  heart,  slowly  and  dumbly 
rising  into  his  mind. 
Those  who  saw  him  saw  none  of 
these  things ;  they  saw  a  shy  New 
England  boy,  quiet,  silent,  intent 
mainly  on  keeping  out  of  the  way. 
There  was  a  dawning  nobility  in 
the  depth  of  the  eye,  the  purity 
of  the  brow,  the  moulding  of  the 
head ;  but  only  those  who  were 
looking  for  the  signs  of  greatness 
discerned  these  hints  and  fore- 


A    CHILD    OF   NATURE 

shadowings.  In  the  making  of  a 
poet  Nature  is  so  secretive  that  few 
discover  her  purpose  until  it  is  ac 
complished.  She  hides  her  inter 
preters  from  recognition  by  their 
fellows  until  she  has  so  confirmed 
them  in  the  habit  of  vision  that 
neither  neglect  nor  applause  can 
deflect  or  betray  them. 


[34] 


And  bark  !  how  blithe  the  Throstle  sings  ! 
He,  too,  is  no  mean  preacher  : 
Come  forth  into  the  light  of  things, 
Let  nature  be  your  teacher. 

She  has  a  world  of  ready  wealth, 
Our  minds  and  hearts  to  bless  — 
Spontaneous  wisdom  breathed  by  health, 
Truth  breathed  by  cheerfulness. 

One  impulse  from  a  vernal  wood 
May  teach  you  more  of  man, 
Of  moral  evil  and  of  good, 
Than  all  the  sages  can. 


a 


SO  far  no  book  had  ever  spoken 
to  John  Foster.  He  had  seen 
a  few  volumes,  and  from  one  book 
he  had  heard  many  things ;  but  no 
phrase  had  ever  crossed  the  thresh 
old  of  his  mind.  In  the  little 
bare  meeting-house  at  the  point 
where  the  roads  crossed,  and  from 
which  the  whole  world  seemed 
to  spread  out,  he  heard  much 
discussion  of  this  book  and  fre 
quent  appeals  to  it;  it  seemed  to 
be  a  Pandora's  box,  in  which  there 
were  weapons  for  use  against  one's 
adversaries,  remedies  for  one's  ill- 

[37] 


i 
CHILD    OF  NATURE 


nesses,  scourges  for  one's  sins, 
rewards  for  one's  virtues,  and  a 
plan  of  things  which  was  taken 
apart  and  put  together  again,  like 
a  vast  and  uninteresting  puzzle. 
Sometimes  out  of  all  this  confusion 
of  sounds  a  word,  a  sentence,  a  pic 
ture,  an  incident  suddenly  came  to 
life  and  glowed  for  a  moment  and 
caught  the  boy  with  a  thrill  so  in 
tense  that  it  was  a  pain  ;  and  then 
the  fog  of  an  unknown  language 
drifted  in,  and  the  glimpse  of  some 
thing  human  and  beautiful  vanished. 
The  atmosphere  was  lifeless,  cold 
and  grey ;  some  vast  system  of 
magic,  remote,  lying  far  apart  from 
anything  he  knew  or  felt,  seemed 
to  hold  possession  of  the  little  meet- 

[38] 


A    CHILD    OF   NATURE 

ing-house,  as  bare,  hard,  untouched 
by  sun  and  cloud  and  song  and  fra 
grance  as  the  rigid  lines  of  the 
building.  Everything  was  out  of 
key  with  Nature  ;  the  largeness, 
the  rushing  life,  the  vast  fertility, 
the  immeasurable  beauty,  included 
everything  except  the  stern,  ugly 
little  structure,  that  seemed  not 
only  to  defy  the  elements,  but  to 
scorn  the  loveliness  and  to  set  the 
teeming  forces  of  Nature  at  de 
fiance. 

In  winter  the  boy  looked  at  the 
bit  of  sky  which  showed  through 
the  tiny  window  above  the  pulpit 
like  a  little  background  of  heaven 
behind  an  immense  expanse  of  ar 
tificial  religious  landscape  of  very 

[39] 


A    CHILV    OF  NATURE 

human  making,  or  listened  with  the 
inward  ear  to  the  faint,  far  murmur 
of  waters  in  the  mountain  brooks; 
in  summer,  when  the  windows  were 
open,  he  seemed  to  hear  all  manner 
of  sounds  beating  against  the  walls, 
as  if  Nature  were  trying  to  break 
down  the  barriers  and  flood  the 
place  with  light  and  warmth. 
It  was  a  great  puzzle  to  the  boy  — 
this  strange  severance  of  the  bare 
little  building  from  the  world 
which  was  so  vast  and  beautiful, 
this  unnatural  divorce  of  the  things 
he  heard  from  the  things  he  knew 
and  felt.  One  Sunday,  while  he 
was  still  a  child  and  this  mystery 
perplexed  and  distressed  him,  a 
strange  hand  opened  the  book  and 

[40] 


this 
he  ! 

anr 


while   he 


> 


«  Truth  and  beauty  bearing  a  new  flower  on  the  ancient  stem  of  time." 


i 


1 


^    CHILD    OF  NATURE 

a  strange  voice  read  from  it.  The 
voice  had  in  it  the  magic  of  feeling 
and  of  insight ;  and  as  it  retold  one 
of  those  old,  familiar  stories  which 
hold  the  mystery  of  life  and  are 
deeper  than  any  sounding  of  plum 
met,  suddenly  the  book  came  to  life 
and  the  walls  seemed  to  dissolve, 
and  with  a  great  rush  of  fragrance, 
caught  up  from  fields  and  woods, 
Nature  swept  into  the  room.  If 
there  had  been  the  stir  of  angels' 
wings  in  the  place  it  could  not  have 
been  holier  than  it  became  from 
that  hour  ;  for  the  harmony  once 
heard  was  never  lost  again. 
When  the  boy  went  home  he  car 
ried  the  book  into  the  woods,  and 
there  it  sang  to  him  strange,  deep 

[41] 


A    CHILD    OF   NATURE 


harmonies  of  the  stars,  with  great 
shoutings  of  the  seas  and  music  of 
birds,  and  all  the  sweet,  familiar 
melody  of  the  fields ;  and  in  this 
shining  world  of  stars  and  seas  and 
birds  and  waving  grain,  which 
he  knew  so  well,  he  saw  strange 
sights  of  men  moving  as  in  great 
dreams  or  caught  up  in  great  storms 
and  swept  like  leaves  hither  and 
thither ;  and  his  heart  was  heavy 
with  the  burden  of  the  mystery  of 
life  and  sore  with  its  sorrows;  and 
the  veil  was  lifted  from  his  eyes, 
and  he  saw  men  as  well  as  Nature ; 
not  with  clear  sight,  but  in  part 
with  his  eyes  and  in  part  with  his 
imagination. 


That  blessed  mood, 
In  which  the  burthen  of  the  mystery , 
In  which  the  heavy  and  the  weary  wet. 
Of  all  this  unintelligible  world, 
Is  lightened:  —  that  serene  and  blessed  mood, 
In  which  the  affections  gently  lead  us  on,  — 
Until t  the  breath  of  this  corporeal  frame 
And  even  the  motion  of  our  human  blood 
Almost  suspended,  we  are  laid  asleep 
In  body,  and  become  a  living  soul : 
While  with  an  eye  made  quiet  by  the  power 
Of  harmony,  and  the  deep  power  of  joy, 
We  see  into  the  life  of  things. 


VI 


.HERE  are  three  great  dis 


coveries    in    a    boy's    life : 


T 

the  discovery  of  Nature,  the  discov 
ery  of  Man,  and  the  discovery  of 
God.  No  man  passes  through 
life  without  getting  glimpses  of 
all  these  mysterious  realities,  but 
there  are  few  to  whom  these  deter 
mining  facts  in  experience  stand 
out  with  equal  clearness.  Some 
have  the  vision  of  God,  and  are  so 
transported  by  it  that  Nature  re 
mains  almost  unnoted  and  men  are 
seen  dimly  and  in  a  dream,  like 
trees  walking.  Some  are  so  enam- 

[45] 


A    CHILD    OF   NATURE 

cured  with  the  beauty  of  the  world 
and  so  penetrated  by  its  vitality 
that,  like  the  fauns  and  dryads,  they 
are  bound  to  the  woods  and  fields 
and  shun  the  homes  and  haunts  of 
men,  singing  strange  melodies,  in 
which  vibrate  the  undertones  of  a 
life  hidden  and  obscure  in  glens 
and  deep  woods ;  and  others  are  so 
caught  up  in  the  movement  of  hu 
man  life  and  so  passionately  sympa 
thetic  with  it  that  they  have  no 
heart  for  the  joy  of  the  world  and 
no  silent  rapture  for  the  vision  of 
God.  To  each  man,  according  to 
his  nature,  the  mystery  shows  itself; 
and  they  are  few  and  great  in  whose 
imagination  all  the  lines  of  light 
meet  and  blend  in  perfect  revelation. 

[46] 


A    CHILD    OF  NATURE 


John  Foster  found  Nature  with  the 
first  pure  touch  of  a  child's  hand 
and  loved  Nature  with  the  sweet 
unconsciousness  of  a  child's  heart. 
It  was  a  vast  playground,  into 
which  he  made  his  way  with  the 
sense  of  possession ;  but  from  the  be 
ginning  there  were  mysterious  voices 
calling  from  a  distance  ;  there  were 
sudden  pauses  in  the  sounds  of  day 
and  in  the  silence  of  the  night  when 
there  seemed  to  be  a  presence  felt, 
but  not  perceived  ;  hidden,  but  not 
unknown  ;  in  which  every  visible 
thing  stirred  and  bloomed  and  lived. 
This  strange,  haunting  presence 
suddenly  flashed  into  his  imagi 
nation  when  he  heard  the  book 
read  for  the  first  time ;  and  when 

[47] 


A    CHILD    OF   NATURE 

he  carried  it  away  into  the  heart 
of  the  woods  and  let  the  light  of 
the  open  sky  fall  on  it,  and  heard 
the  birds  singing  over  him  as  they 
sang  in  the  pages  of  the  book,  and 
the  faint  rustle  of  grain  borne  to 
him  on  the  soft  air  as  it  rises  into 
sound  and  subsides  into  silence 
again  in  the  record  of  the  book,  he 
knew  that  between  the  beauty  and 
truth  in  Nature  and  the  beauty  and 
truth  in  the  book  there  was  neither 
discord  nor  severance,  but  harmony 
at  the  root  and  in  the  flower  of  the 
life  that  climbs  in  Nature  and  finds 
many  voices  in  the  human  spirit. 
And  so  he  discovered  the  presence 
and  knew  that  God  was  in  His 
world. 

[48] 


• 


A    CHILD    OF   NATURE 

All  this  lay  deep  in  the  boy's  heart, 
but  it  was  dim  in  his  thought ;  for 
the  real  things  of  life  rise  very 
gradually  into  consciousness ;  they 
are  born  in  experience  and  slowly 
ascend  out  of  the  deeps  where  the 
soul  touches  the  Infinite  in  the 
innermost  recesses  of  being.  The 
child  plucks  the  flower  with  a  care 
less  hand  and  does  not  know  that 
its  roots  are  deep  in  the  mystery  of 
the  universe  and  that  earth  and  sky 
meet  in  its  making.  It  is  first  a 
flower  to  the  eye,  and  then,  when  its 
wonderful  relationships  are  under 
stood,  it  blooms  again  in  the  im 
agination  ;  and  it  is  in  this  second 
blooming  that  art  gathers  it  fresh  and 
fragrant  for  immortal  blossoming. 
[4]  [49] 


/  thought  of  Chatterton,  the  marvellous  Boy, 
The  sleepless  Soul  that  perished  in  his  pride  ; 
Of  Him  who  walked  in  glory  and  in  joy 
Following  his  plough,  along  the  mountain-side 
By  our  own  spirits  are  we  deified. 


VII 

JOHN  FOSTER  had  made  two 
great  discoveries  without  tak 
ing  note  of  his  journey  or  waking 
out  of  the  dream  of  childhood. 
And  now  his  dream  began  to  centre 
about  the  bare  little  schoolhouse, 
and  new  figures  moved  in  it. 
There,  as  at  home,  John  was  silent ; 
he  did  not  hold  himself  apart,  and 
there  was  no  touch  of  pride  in  his 
detachment ;  but  language  failed 
him ;  he  knew  not  how  to  speak 
of  the  things  in  his  heart,  and  other 
things  barely  touched  him.  He 
had  his  place  in  the  games,  but  he 

[53] 


A    CHILD    OF   NATURE 


seemed  to  be  taking  a  part  rather 
than  playing  ;  the  shouts,  the  rush, 
the  turmoil,  the  stir  and  tumult  of 
recess  and  holidays  never  penetrated 
the  quiet  places  where  he  lived. 
The  text-books  were  faithfully  stud 
ied,  but  they  left  him  cold ;  their 
speech  was  not  his,  nor  did  the 
things  they  taught  mean  anything 
to  him.  It  seemed  to  be  the  way 
of  the  world  to  know  these  things, 
and  so  he  learned  them ;  but  they 
neither  liberated  nor  inspired  him. 
Various  masters,  competent  and  in 
competent,  sat  behind  the  little 
table  with  its  row  of  dull  books, 
but  the  real  teacher  never  came 
that  way,  and  the  boy's  spirit  re 
mained  untouched.  There  were  a 

[54] 

L 


A    CHILD    OF   NATURE 

few  books  in  the  little  library  of  the 
school,  mostly  of  the  kind  that  are 
born  dead  ;  but  there  were  also  a 
few  that  lived,  and  it  chanced  that 
one  of  these  books  came  into  the 
boy's  hand  and  thence  into  his 
pocket,  and  was  carried  afield  the 
next  day.  He  knew  nothing  of  its 
origin,  of  the  man  whose  heart  was 
in  it,  of  the  spiritual  conditions 
which  helped  to  fashion  and  were 
reflected  in  it.  It  was  to  him 
simply  paper  with  black  marks 
upon  it.  Stretched  out  at  the  foot 
of  a  great  tree,  with  the  murmurous 
music  of  the  forest  gently  touched 
by  the  wind  above  him,  he  opened 
the  book  indifferently  and  without 
expectation,  when  suddenly,  like  a 

[55] 


m 


NATURE 


flash  of  light,  a  phrase  seemed  to 
leap  out  of  the  book  into  his  im 
agination.  It  was  a  line  from 
Burns ;  one  of  those  fine  simplici 
ties  of  speech  in  'which  a  deep 
thought  lies  like  a  star  in  a  moun 
tain  pool.  In  that  moment  the  boy 
knew  without  knowing  what  art  is 
and  means ;  he  caught  a  glimpse  of 
that  perfection  in  which  spirit  and 
form  dwell  together  in  immortal 
harmony  ;  truth  and  beauty  bearing 
a  new  flower  on  the  ancient  stem 
of  time.  There  was  magic  in 
the  line ;  the  earth  suddenly  shone 
with  new  meanings  ;  the  boy's 
heart  danced  with  inward  glee  ;  it 
seemed  as  if  he  must  break  away 
from  bonds  of  time  and  place 

[56] 


A    CHILD    OF   NATURE 

into  some  unrealised  liberty ;  some 
boundless  freedom  wide  enough  for 
his  soul  to  run  at  large  in.  The 
glow  of  that  hour  lasted  long,  and 
as  fast  as  it  began  to  fade  was  re 
newed  by  the  touch  of  another 
poet;  for  the  boy  had  found  his 
way  to  the  singers,  and  the  world 
was  flooded  with  music.  He  walked 
on  air  in  the  ecstasy  of  those  first 
days  of  fellowship  with  the  seers, 
the  thinkers,  and  the  poets.  The 
fields  about  him  seemed  to  spread 
to  the  horizon  as  he  ran,  and  they 
were  swept  by  gusts  of  fragrance 
from  the  immortal  fields  where  the 
vanished  singers  chant  beyond  the 
touch  of  care  and  time  ;  the  woods 
were  haunted  with  half-seen  forms 
[57] 

m 


A    CHILD    OF  NATURE 


which  the  world  had  long  banished 
and  forgotten,  won  back  to  their 
ancient  haunts  by  the  boy's  faith 
and  vision  ;  and  the  stars,  as  he 
walked  the  lonely  road  at  night, 
were  like  swinging  lamps  set  along 
some  great  highway  where  the  im 
mortals  pass  in  majestic  procession. 
The  touch  of  the  imagination  lay  on 
the  whole  earth  like  a  light  which 
brings  all  hidden,  obscure,  and  mys 
terious  things  to  view.  The  boy 
was  walking  by  the  light  which 
has  shone  on  the  path  of  every  poet 
since  time  began.  The  power  to 
create  was  not  to  be  his,  but  he 
lived  in  the  creative  mood;  the 
wonders  were  all  revealed  to  him, 
the  joy  was  in  his  heart,  the  rap- 

[58] 


A    CHILD    OF   NATURE 


ture  in  his  eye  ;   for  a  new  heaven 


and    new  earth  were  born    in    his 
imagination,  and  the  morning  stars 


sang  again    the   great  song  of  be 
ginnings. 


And,  when  it  chanced 
That  pauses  of  deep  silence  mocked  his  skill, 
Then,  sometimes,  in  that  silence,  while  he  hung 
Listening,  a  gentle  shock  of  mild  surprise 
Has  carried  far  into  his  heart  the  voice 
Of  mountain  torrents  ;  or  the  visible  scene 
IVould  enter  unawares  into  his  mind 
With  all  its  solemn  imagery,  its  rocks, 
Its  woods,  and  that  uncertain  heaven,  received 
Into  the  bosom  of  the*  steady  lake. 


^ 


VIII 

THE  poets  sit  beside  the  tree 
of  life,  and  one  cannot  learn 
their  songs  without  learning  also  the 
sorrow  and  joy,  the  strife  and  peace, 
the  work  and  rest,  the  hate  and 
love,  the  loss  and  gain  which  make 
up  the  human  story. 
In  the  lonely  countryside  the  soli 
tary  boy  entered  into  the  rich 
experience  of  the  race ;  commit 
ted  its  crimes,  fought  its  battles, 
suffered  its  defeats,  was  bruised 
by  its  sorrows,  and  borne  aloft 
on  the  .strong  wings  of  its  great 
aspirations.  He  looked  into  the 

[63] 


A    CHILD    OF   NATURE 


heart  of  the  past  through  eyes 
that  had  the  searching  insight  of 
genius  behind  them.  The  passion 
of  the  race,  which  has  borne  so 
many  great  spirits  on  mounting 
waves  of  power  and  dragged  so 
many  down  to  the  very  gates  of 
hell,  encompassed  him,  and  he  un 
derstood  for  the  first  time  what  tre 
mendous  forces  contend  with  man 
in  the  making  of  that  personality 
which  in  turn  makes  destiny. 
Among  all  those  who  saw  John 
Foster  in  those  days  no  one  knew 
what  was  moving  within  him,  least 
of  all  they  of  his  own  household ; 
for  youth  is  a  mystery  save  to  the 
poets ;  and  its  rapture,  its  passion, 
its  dreaming  of  the  time  that  is  to 


I 


"The  madness  and  the  gladness  in  the  foaming  cup  which  life  holds  to  its  lips." 


A    CHILD    OF   NATURE 

be  —  the  madness  and  the  gladness 
in  the  foaming  cup  which  life  holds 
to  its  lips  —  pass  unnoted  by  those 
who  live  under  the  same  roof. 
In  silence  and  solitude  the  soul 
comes  to  its  own  ;  in  silence  and 
solitude  it  passes  through  the  ulti 
mate  gate  into  the  final  mystery. 
But  there  was  no  sense  of  loneli 
ness  in  the  boy's  life  in  those 
days  when  he  was  discovering  what 
is  in  men,  and  striving  to  find 
how  this  knowledge  was  one  with 
the  knowledge  of  Nature  and  of 
God.  He  was  swept  out  himself 
by  the  tides  of  emotion,  impulse 
and  vitality  from  the  Infinite  which 
flowed  in  upon  him  as  the  sea 
comes  sweeping  in  upon  the  land. 
[5]  [65] 


A    CHILD    OF   NATURE 

He  lacked  near  companionship,  but 
he  was  making  friends  with  human 
ity,  and  Nature  was  finding  place 
and  speech  for  him. 


wm 


[66] 


He  sang  of  love,  with  quiet  blending. 
Slow  to  begin,  and  never  ending  ; 
Qf  serious  faith,  and  inward  glee  ; 
That  was  the  Song  —  the  Song  for  me  ! 


IX 

THERE  was  one  other  dis 
covery  awaiting  him  when 
boyhood  had  broadened  into  youth. 
He  made  it  unconsciously,  as  he 
had  made  all  the  other  discoveries. 
A  seed  fell  into  his  heart  unawares, 
and  he  awoke  one  day  and  found 
the  flower  of  love  blooming  there, 
shy,  delicate,  and  fragrant ;  hidden, 
like  the  arbutus,  in  sweet  obscurity, 
and  shrinking  from  the  touch  of 
the  gentlest  hand.  And  the  boy 
in  his  rapture  and  shyness  barely 
looked  at  it,  content  with  the  per 
fume  which  it  exhaled  through  his 


A   CHILD    OF   NATURE 

whole  being.  On  the  instant  he 
understood  many  things  which  the 
poets  had  told  him  in  a  language  he 
had  not  learned.  He  was  a  born 
lover,  being  of  a  pure  mind  and  a 
rich  imagination  ;  and  he  wore  the 
crown  of  life  in  silent  blissfulness. 
He  could  not  have  spoken  if  he 
would,  for  speech  was  denied  him; 
but  his  nature  was  atune  and,  like 
a  sensitive  harp,  vibrated  at  every 
touch  of  the  unseen  fingers.  She 
played  upon  him  and  did  not  hear 
the  music.  Born  to  feel  and  to 
know  rather  than  to  speak  and  to 
act,  for  him  love  meant  not  passion, 
but  surrender.  He  gave  everything, 
and  the  great  law  was  worked  out 
in  him  ;  for  he  regained  what  he 

[70] 


A    CHILD    OF   NATURE 

had  given,  increased  a  thousandfold. 
There  was  a  shrine  in  his  soul  and 
there  was  perpetual  adoration  there, 
and  he  became  like  the  beautiful 
soul  he  worshipped ;  slowly  trans 
formed  by  the  creative  power  of 
that  divine  passion  of  which  re 
ligion  and  art  and  service  are  the 
witnesses,  and  from  which  all  holy 
and  perfect  and  beautiful  thoughts, 
words,  deeds,  and  works  are  born. 
The  tumult  barely  touched  his 
senses,  but  set  the  imagination 
aflame.  The  sensitive  face  of  the 
New  England  girl  caught  the  glow 
of  the  morning,  in  which  for  the 
first  time  the  young  man,  passing 
swiftly  out  of  boyhood,  saw  the 
great  world  shining  in  the  order 


A    CHILD    OF  NATURE 

and  beauty  of  immortal  love.  Every 
common  thing  turned  to  gold  in 
that  light ;  every  impure  thought 
vanished,  for  Una  was  passing  that 
way.  In  the  depths  of  his  heart 
there  were  stirrings  of  deep  human 
feelings  which  knit  him  to  his  fel 
lows  in  the  silent  brotherhood  of 
universal  experience.  To  love  one 
human  soul  is  to  have  the  capacity 
to  love  all  ;  and  through  a  great 
affection  for  the  friend  at  his  side  a 
man  reaches  out  and  touches  hands 
with  his  remotest  human  kin.  The 
miracle  of  love,  which  turns  human 
clay  into  the  semblance  and  shape 
of  divinity,  once  wrought  in  a  man's 
heart  ripens  swiftly  or  slowly  into 
infinite  compassion  and  the  capacity 

[7*] 


A    CHILD    OF   NATURE 


for  sacrifice.  It  was  not  in  John 
Foster's  nature  to  round  out  experi 
ence  by  expression  or  action  ;  he 
was  born  to  see,  to  think,  and  to  feel, 
but  not  to  speak  or  act.  The  depths 
of  his  soul  were  moved,  but  the 
trembling  of  the  waters  was  unseen 
and  inaudible.  The  love  which  filled 
his  soul  was  as  pure  as  the  fragrance 
of  a  flower  or  of  the  unstained  sky  ; 
but  lacking  the  kindling  touch  of 
passion,  to  which  the  harp  of  life 
vibrates  into  the  most  enchanting 
music,  it  remained  a  song  without 
words  ;  one  of  those  unheard  melo 
dies  of  which  the  audible  music  of 
the  world  is  but  an  echo.  The 
wonder-working  stirring  of  the  im 
agination  when  the  senses  are  aglow, 

[73] 


A    CHILD    OF  NATURE 

which  renews  in  every  generation 
the  creative  mood  and  brings  back 
the  creative  moment,  was  denied 
him  ;  but  all  that  love  means  short 
of  its  ultimate  surrender  and  its  final 
fruition  he  knew.  Its  purity,  devo 
tion,  exaltation,  were  his  ;  its  trans 
lation  out  of  the  isolation  of  rapture 
into  the  deeper  joy  of  perfect  com 
panionship  in  days  and  works,  in 
the  visions  and  tasks  which  are  ap 
pointed  to  all  those  who  would 
make  the  journey  of  life  to  the  very 
end,  he  did  and  could  not  know. 
He  was  a  worshipper  from  afar ; 
and  the  goddess  passed  his  way  with 
out  knowing  that  he  had  looked 
and  vseen  and  loved. 


[74] 


X 


And  O,  ye  Fountains,  Meadows,  Hills,  and  Groves, 

Think  not  of  any  severing  of  our  loves  ! 

Yet  in  my  heart  of  hearts  I  feel  your  might ; 

I  only  have  relinquished  one  delight 

To  live  beneath  your  more  habitual  sway. 


X 

A  LIFE  that  silently  expands 
through  vision  and  thought 
and  is  undisturbed  by  the  tumult 
of  action  keeps  no  reckoning  of 
time  ;  for  the  days  define  themselves 
sharply  in  the  consciousness  of  those 
only  whose  tasks  are  set  for  special 
reasons  and  whose  work  is  assigned 
by  the  clock.  John  Foster's  life 
was  so  essentially  subjective  that  the 
divisions  of  time  made  for  toilers 
of  the  hour  had  no  existence  for 
him ;  days  and  years  flowed  past 
him  in  one  unbroken  current,  the 
shadows  of  the  trees  cooling  the 

[77] 


A    CHILD    OF   NATURE 


quiet  waters  in  summer  and  the 
stars  moving  with  them  in  winter. 
As  time  went  on  the  early  reserve 
deepened  and  the  early  silence  was 
more  rarely  broken.  It  was  not 
the  life  of  a  recluse  who  wished 
to  escape  from  his  fellows ;  it  was 
rather  the  life  of  a  man  who  was 
denied  the  gift  of  speech.  The 
gentleness  of  the  face,  the  kindli 
ness  of  the  eyes,  the  habitual  care 
for  others,  showed  the  fellowship 
of  this  reticent  soul  with  those  to 
whom  he  was  bound  by  ties  of 
kinship  or  of  neighbourhood.  The 
work  on  the  farm  was  never  inter 
mitted  ;  there  were  no  journeys  be 
yond  the  mountains  ;  for  while  the 
man's  thoughts  wandered  far,  his 

[78] 

i 


B 

A    CHILD    OF   NATURE 

feet  never  strayed  outside  the  limits 
of  the  great  uplands  on  which  he 
was  born.  Changes  came,  as  they 
will  come  alike  to  those  who  sit  at 
the  fireside  and  to  those  who  travel. 
One  after  another  the  children  who 
grew  up  under  the  roof  sought  the 
larger  opportunities  of  more  active 
communities ;  the  family  shrunk  un 
til  John  alone  of  the  younger  gen 
eration  remained.  Then  the  father 
and  mother  died;  there  were  brief 
home-comings,  when  the  elders 
were  carried  beyond  the  familiar 
walls  into  the  wide  friendliness  of 
the  fields  ;  and  then  the  house  be 
came  silent  again,  and  John  was 
left  to  that  seclusion  which  for  him 
meant  the  richest  companionship. 

[79] 


A    CHILD    OF  NATURE 

The  farm  was  looked  after,  but  it  was 
a  secondary  interest;  the  silent  man 
loved  his  bit  of  the  landscape  more 
than  he  loved  the  crops  it  bore. 
Idealist  as  he  was  to  the  very  heart, 
he  was  saved  from  material  disaster 
by  habits  of  industry  and  thrift, 
which,  as  in  many  another  case, 
kept  the  flower  of  the  spirit  well 
shielded  from  keen  winds  and  bit 
ter  frosts. 

The  splendour  slowly  softened,  as 
youth  vanished,  into  a  tender  beauty 
wh.iih  touched  the  heart  of  the 
^ian  as  the  earlier  glory  had  touched 
his  imagination.  Thoughts  too 
deep  either  for  laughter  or  for  tears 
kept  company  with  him  at  work 
in  his  fields  or  at  rest  in  the  woods. 
[80] 


A    CHILD    OF  NATURE 

It  seemed  to  him  as  if  the  splen 
dour  which  once  lay  on  the  surface 
of  the  world  had  not  vanished,  but 
silently  sunk  into  the  heart  of 
things  and  radiated  thence  in  a 
beauty  more  tender  and  pervading. 
He  learned  the  artist's  secret  of 
finding  and  keeping  all  things  fresh 
to  his  eye  and  imagination  ;  as  the 
glow  of  youth  faded  he  found  the  de 
parting  loveliness  reappearing  in  the 
form  and  shape  and  meaning  of  com 
mon  things ;  thus  gradually  exchang 
ing  sight,  which  may  grow  dim, 
for  vision  which  becomes  clearer 
and  more  direct  as  the  years  go  by. 
So  he  kept  the  fairyland  of  his  early 
dreams  at  his  doorstep,  and  trans 
lated  the  great  speech  of  the  poets 
[6]  [81] 


I  A   CHILD    OF    NATURE 

into  his  own  homely,  every-day 
utterance.  He  had  mastered  the 
art  of  life ;  for  he  had  learned  that 
the  purest  idealism  may  be  kept 
untarnished  in  daily  dealing  with 
homely  cares  and  common  work. 
When  the  first  kindling  glow  of 
the  senses  began  to  fail  he  held 
aloft  the  steady  light  of  the  imagi 
nation,  and  for  him  the  world  never 
ceased  to  glow  and  bloom  and  ripen 
in  the  large  purpose  of  God.  This 
discovery  kept  him  in  touch  with 
Spenser  and  Shakespeare  and  Keats  ; 
and  he  found  with  Emerson  that 
wherever  a  man  stands  the  whole 
arch  of  the  sky  is  over  him. 
John  Foster,  in  his  passion  for  the 
stars,  did  not  trip  and  fall  to  the 


A   CHILD    OF  NATURE 

ground  over  common  duties ;  he 
kept  his  footing  amid  homely  cares 
and  in  familiar  relations,  and  so  his 
vision  remained  undimmed.  His 
neighbours  knew  him  to  be  kindly 
and  simple  and  industrious;  they 
thought  him  lacking  in  ambition  ; 
he  cared  little  for  new  methods  and 
his  talk  about  the  staple  topics  of 
a  farming  community  was  of  the 
briefest.  From  the  standpoint  of 
local  opinion  he  was  trustworthy 
and  industrious,  but  he  was  not  suc 
cessful.  To  his  hard-handed  and 
hard-headed  neighbours  he  was  an 
amiable  ne'er-do-weel ;  a  man  of 
good  principles  who  could  not  get 
on  in  life.  They  judged  him  en 
tirely  from  the  standpoint  of  farm 

[83] 


^. 


A   CHILD    OF  NATURE  | 

management,  and  he  was  a  very  in 
different  farmer. 

If  he  knew  the  neighbourhood 
opinion  he  was  not  oppressed  by  it. 
His  life  was  so  entirely  the  unfold 
ing  of  the  inward  spirit,  his  stand 
ards  were  so  far  above  local  ideals, 
his  manner  of  life  was  so  individual, 
that  without  being  self-centred  he 
was  independent  of  his  surroundings  ; 
he  was  a  rustic  whose  occupations 
were  of  the  farm,  but  whose  inter 
ests  were  of  the  world.  It  is  wise 
to  know  neighbourhood  opinion 
and  to  regard  it  for  correction,  ad 
monition,  and  reproof;  but  he  who 
would  possess  his  own  soul  must 
live  outside  his  neighbourhood.  It 
was  precisely  at  this  point  that 


A   CHILD    OF  NATURE 


the  indifferent  farmer  parted  com 
pany  with  neighbours ;  they  had 
only  the  vocation  of  the  hands  ;  he 
had  also  the  avocation  of  the  spirit. 


XI 


The  Clouds  that  gather  round  the  setting  sun 
Do  take  a  sober  colouring  from  an  eye 
That  bath  kept  watch  o'er  man1  s  mortality  ; 
Another  race  hath  been,  and  other  palms  are  won, 
Thanks  to  the  human  heart  by  which  we  live, 
Thanks  to  its  tenderness,  its  joys  and  fears, 
To  me  the  meanest  flower  that  blows  can  give 
Thoughts  that  do  often  lie  too  deep  for  tears. 


I 


XI 

N  his  later  years  he  found  a 
new  source  of  companionship. 
Denied  the  gift  of  speech,  by  which 
men  not  only  carry  their  thought 
outside  their  own  personalities  by 
giving  it  ultimate  form,  but  keep 
the  record  of  their  own  experience, 
and  thus  continually  reinforce  the 
creative  energy  of  personality,  Fos 
ter  might  have  led  an  existence 
only  half  realised  in  thought.  From 
this  half-life,  which  never  passes  out 
of  subjective  moods  and  feelings, 
and,  like  a  subterranean  stream, 
never  runs  clear  in  the  light,  he  was 


A    CHILD    OF   NATURE 

saved  by  the  discovery  that  if  he 
could  not  give  his  thought  full  flow 
and  volume,  he  could  at  least  keep 
a  record  of  it ;  a  kind  of  tally  of  ex 
perience.  In  these  years  of  search 
ing  observation,  of  deep  reading,  of 
quiet  meditation,  the  world  had 
gradually  become  clear  to  his  im 
agination  in  its  vast  and  infinitely 
diversified  life.  As  a  student  he 
had  lived  in  many  ages,  explored 
many  countries,  seen  many  cities, 
heard  many  languages,  and  pene 
trated  many  experiences  ;  as  a  lover 
of  Nature  he  had  learned  many  se 
crets  of  woods  and  fields  and  chang 
ing  skies  ;  as  a  sensitive,  responsive, 
meditative  man  he  had  come  to 
know  life  deeply  and  with  sanity 

[90] 


A    CHILD    OF  NATURE 

of  insight.  What  other  men  would 
have  called  a  philosophy  or  general 
scheme  of  things  was  to  him  simply 
knowledge  of  life  borne  in  from 
many  sources,  gained  far  more  by 
the  very  commonplace  process  of 
living  than  by  any  unusual  process 
of  thinking,  distilled  by  time  out 
of  the  rich  substance  of  experience. 
Slowly  but  steadily  the  great  order 
of  the  world  revealed  itself  to  him, 
and  he  found  his  own  place  in  it ; 
as  he  touched  it  at  many  points  in 
ever-deepening  harmony  of  rela 
tionship  his  nature  was  fertilised ; 
for  whenever  a  man  touches  that 
order  which  is  the  hem  of  the  gar 
ment  of  God,  vitality  passes  into 
him.  Patiently  and  reverently  wait- 


[91] 


:^i 


A    CHILD    OF  NATURE 


ing  upon  God,  he  was  enriched  and 
inspired  with  glimpses  of  truth,  in 
sights  into  life,  visions  of  beauty. 
The  cares  of  the  world  did  not  wait 
by  his  door  when  he  passed  out  of 
his  home  into  the  wide  domain  of 
Nature ;  the  tumult  of  the  world 
did  not  drown  the  delicate  melodies 
which  float  over  sun-swept  fields  or 
are  borne  on  summer  airs  through 
the  unthronged  paths  of  the  woods  ; 
the  work  of  the  world  did  not  ex 
haust  and  benumb  the  responsive 
power  of  his  spirit  when  mysterious 
influences,  rising  like  exhalations 
out  of  the  pure  deeps  of  his  nature, 
touched  him  like  chords  of  faint 
melody  and  set  his  spirit  vibrating 
with  the  divine  harmony  at  the 

[9*1 

I 


r;;;'S;>>v/v-^ 


A    CHILD    OF   NATURE 

heart  of  things.  He  was  free;  he 
was  sane ;  he  had  silence,  solitude, 
and  the  pure  heart;  and  the  world 
spoke  to  him :  these  are  always  the 
simple  annals  of  the  seers  and  poets. 
This  continual  flowering  of  thought 
in  his  mind  came  at  last  to  have  a 
record  ;  for  he  formed  a  habit  of 
keeping  a  register  of  his  thoughts. 
It  was  a  skeleton  report ;  a  bare 
outline  ;  for  some  defect  in  his  na 
ture  kept  him  from  any  approach  to 
free  expression.  He  was  content 
to  make  signs  ;  to  keep  a  few  brief 
data ;  a  running  account  of  the 
things  he  saw,  heard,  felt,  and 
thought.  As  he  grew  older  this 
history  of  his  spirit  grew,  not  fuller, 
but  more  exact  and  definite  ;  it  was 

[93] 


A    CHILD    OF  NATURE 

made  up  of  slight  but  well-defined 
tracings  of  his  course  through  the 
mysterious  world  of  his  journeying. 
If  the  little  note-books  in  which 
this  record  was  kept  had  fallen  into 
the  hands  of  an  unimaginative  man, 
they  would  have  seemed  but  a  con 
fusion  of  abrupt  and  incomplete 
phrases ;  a  man  of  insight,  finding 
the  key  to  their  revelations,  would 
have  seen  in  them  the  stuff  of 
which  wonder-books  are  made  ;  the 
star  dust  of  great  truths,  the  pollen 
of  the  imperishable  flowering  of 
imagination,  the  seeds  of  brave 
deeds ;  such  gathering  of  treasure, 
in  a  word,  as  befalls  the  man  who 
travels  through  a  universe  alight 
with  the  splendour  of  God  and 

[94] 


A   CHILD    OF  NATURE 


throbbing  with  His  measureless  life. 
It  was  the  stuff  of  immortal  life 
which  found  its  way  through  Fos 
ter's  rich  but  silent  personality  into 
this  record  of  his  experience ;  it 
was  the  stuff,  therefore,  of  which 
literature  is  made.  For  literature 
is  not  fashioned  out  of  hand ;  its 
substance  is  secreted  slowly  and 
silently  in  the  depths  of  the  spirit 
out  of  all  its  passions,  sorrows,  toils, 
cares,  and  works,  with  flashing  of 
stars  sinking  unawares  into  its  heart, 
and  great  swelling  harmonies  bear 
ing  it  onward  in  those  infrequent 
ecstasies  which  sometimes  lift  it 
above  itself.  Ii 


A    CHILD    OF  NATURE 

quietly  as  he  lived,  John  Foster  kept 
the  record  of  his  soul.  And  when 
he  died  it  lay  in  his  desk  with  the 
much-worn  books  in  which  for 
years  he  had  kept  his  accounts  with 
the  seedsman  and  storekeeper.  And 
there,  side  by  side,  through  the 
months  when  the  old  house  was 
tenantless  lay  these  two  records  of 
a  man's  history  as  the  owner  of  a 
few  acres  and  the  possessor  also  of 
that  sublime  landscape  which  is  the 
foreground  of  man's  immortality. 


[96] 


Thy  thoughts  and  feelings  shall  not  die. 

Nor  leave  tbee,  -when  gray  hairs  are  nigh. 

A  melancholy  slave  ; 

But  an  old  age  serene  and  bright, 

And  lovely  as  a  Lapland  night, 

Shall  lead  thee  to  thy  grave. 


XII 

APRIL  slowly  drifted  over  the 
mountain  skies  into  May, 
and  May,  touched  with  the  first 
delicate  bloom  of  the  tender  North 
ern  summer,  ripened  into  June,  and 
life  crept  to  the  door  of  the  old 
house  where  John  Foster  had  al 
ways  met  it  with  a  smile,  and 
climbed  to  the  windows,  and  bud 
ded  and  bloomed  in  the  old  garden, 
where  a  few  familiar  and  friendly 
flowers  had  always  lived  on  inti 
mate  terms  with  the  silent  man  ; 
but  there  was  no  response  to  the 
beauty  which  enfolded  the  deserted 

[99] 


A   CHILD    OF  NATURE 


house.  The  hand  of  Nature  was 
on  the  latch,  but  the  door  remained 
shut.  If  one  who  had  known  the 
love  of  the  man  for  this  radiant  and 
fragrant  world  and  the  caressing 
gentleness  of  that  world,  had  taken 
thought  of  the  circumstances,  it 
would  have  seemed  as  if  Nature 
missed  a  familiar  presence  and  were 
feeling  for  it  with  sensitive  tendrils, 
and  striving  to  recall  it  with  voices 
that  were  musical  murmurs  on  the 
fragrant  breath  of  summer.  The 
wide  landscape  softened,  grew  ten 
der,  stirred  with  the  rising  tide  of 
life,  and  broke  at  last  into  verdure 
and  bloom,  all  the  hidden  springs 
of  vitality  overflowing  in  green 
rivulets  or  rich  masses  of  foliage  ; 


the 


It 

' 

'  9 

• 

tees 


de  of 


idden  springs 
^  of  foliage  ;    |j 


It  would  have  seemed  as  if  nature  missed  a  familiar  presence. 


A    CHILD    OF   NATURE 


but  the  house  remained  silent  and 
tenantless.  Seed-time  passed  into 
harvest  and  the  ancient  miracle  was 
wrought  again  ;  but  in  the  un 
opened  house,  to  which  the  sun 
found  access  only  for  a  few  slender 
beams,  the  record  of  Foster's  life  lay 
like  a  seed  buried  in  the  ground, 
beyond  the  reach  of  warmth  and 
light. 

In  October,  when  the  banners  of 
the  retreating  hosts  were  flaming 
on  the  hills,  the  closed  windows 
were  suddenly  opened  and  the  door 
swung  wide  for  a  new  tenant.  The 
farmer  folk  were  at  their  wits'  ends 
to  classify  him,  for  his  like  had 
never  been  seen  in  that  country  be 
fore  save  in  some  gay  company  of 
[101] 


A   CHILD    OF    NATURE 


summer  sightseers.  He  was  young  ; 
there  was  that  air  of  being  on  easy 
terms  with  the  world  which  can 
neither  be  counterfeited  nor  con 
cealed  ;  his  figure,  face,  bearing, 
manner,  and  dress  bore  unmistak 
able  testimony  to  largeness  of  op 
portunity  and  ripeness  of  taste. 
From  the  local  point  of  view  he 
was  an  idler  ;  for  he  made  no  show 
of  interest  in  the  farm  ;  and  no  one 
saw  the  trace  of  any  kind  of  work 
on  hands  or  face.  He  was  simple, 
unaffected,  and  friendly ;  but  he 
was  even  more  detached  from  the 
life  of  the  community  than  John 
Foster  had  been.  Foster  had  never 
spoken  out ;  he  had  never  acquired 
the  use  of  speech  ;  the  new  tenant 

[102] 


A   CHILD    OF  NATURE 

of  the  old  house  had  had  access  to 
so  many  kinds  of  knowledge,  had 
seen  life  in  so  many  diverse  aspects 
and  in  so  many  places  that  his  in 
dividuality  had  been  buried  for  the 
time  under  a  mass  of  unassimilated 
learning  and  half-understood  ex 
periences.  To  Foster  life  had  been 
niggardly  in  its  gifts  of  outward  ex 
perience  ;  to  Ralph  Parkman  life 
had  been  lavish  ;  the  one  reached 
order,  clearness,  beauty  by  the  un 
folding  of  his  own  nature ;  the 
other  was  to  attain  these  ultimate 
ends  of  living  by  a  rich  process  of 
assimilation.  To  the  one  had  been 
given  the  clear  vision,  the  deep  con 
viction,  the  inward  harmony ;  to 
the  other  freedom,  fluency,  and 
C  I03] 


A    CHILD    OF  NATURE 

beauty  of  expression.  The  one 
lacked  words,  the  other  lacked  the 
inward  unity  of  thought  and  knowl 
edge  which  charges  words  with 
meaning  and  gives  them  wings  for 
flight  into  the  highest  regions  of 
expression. 
There  was  a  touch  of  genius  in 
Ralph  Parkman  ;  that  beautiful 
grace  which  seems  to  be  the 
flower  of  ancestral  toil ;  as  if  for 
gotten  generations  had  worked, 
that  presently,  as  out  of  a  rich  soil, 
one  human  soul  might  blossom 
spontaneously,  radiantly,  with  the 
divine  unconsciousness  of  the  flow 
ers  of  the  field.  And  conditions 
had  made  it  easy  for  the  ardent 
young  spirit  to  bask  in  the  sun  and 
I04] 


A   CHILD    OF  NATURE 


pluck  the  fruits  by  the  lifting  of 
the  hand  which  others  gain  by  toil 
and  self-denial  and  pain.  While 
his  fellows  were  besieging  fortune 
with  prayers  and  offerings  and  sac 
rifices  she  turned  on  him  her 
indifferent  glance,  and  straightway 
there  was  a  smile  on  the  face  of 
fate;  she  ran  before  him,  and  the 
way  blossomed  with  opportunity 
and  pleasure.  There  was  a  vein  of 
native  vigor  in  him,  or  he  would 
have  been  corrupted ;  for  he  was 
educated  without  discipline.  He 
had  troops  of  friends ;  he  was  the 
joy  of  the  schools  through  which 
he  passed  with  a  contagious  sweet 
ness  of  disposition  and  charm  of 
temperament,  the  prizes  falling  to 


•&&. 


A   CHILD    OF  NATURE 

him  by  force,  apparently,  of  his  own 
inward  attraction.  He  loved  study, 
art,  travel ;  and  he  went  free-footed 
and  sure-footed  through  a  world 
which  set  its  choice  food  and  wine 
before  him  wherever  he  chose  to 
tarry.  He  was  thirty  years  old 
when  he  opened  the  door  of  John 
Foster's  bare  little  study,  and  he 
had  awakened  more  hopes  than 
gather  about  most  men  in  the  full 
course  of  a  lifetime.  He  knew  so 
much,  had  seen  so  many  things, 
lived  in  so  many  cities,  made  so 
many  friends,  spoke  so  many  lan 
guages,  and  was  gifted  with  such  su 
perb  vitality  and  such  ease  and  grace 
that  he  seemed  capable  of  all  things, 
and  had  become  a  glorious  promise. 
[106] 


A    CHILD    OF   NATURE 

His  had  been  a  golden  youth,  and 
now  that  it  was  passing  from  him, 
Ralph  Parkman  was  becoming 
aware  of  the  peril  of  his  position. 
He  had  given  a  draft  for  an  unlim 
ited  sum  on  the  future ;  could  he 
meet  it  when  the  day  of  payment 
came?  Everything  solicited  him, 
but  no  voice  had  spoken  to  his 
spirit ;  he  could  turn  his  hand  to 
many  things,  but  no  art  had  laid 
its  deep  compulsion  on  him;  he 
had  passed  through  many  fields  of 
knowledge,  and  his  inward  life  had 
grown  rich  by  acquisition,  but 
there  was  no  building  power  in  his 
soul,  no  divine  necessity  striving  in 
his  heart  for  place  and  tool  and 
speech.  Many  things  spoke  through 
[107] 


A    CHILD    OF  NATURE 


him ;  but  he  remained  silent. 
When  this  knowledge  of  the  dis 
parity  between  his  material  and  his 
organising  power  became  clear 
there  was  a  tumult  in  his  soul 
which  marked  the  beginning  of  that 
crisis  which  shapes  a  man's  char 
acter  and  determines  his  fortunes. 
He  was  filled  with  a  passionate  de 
sire  for  silence  and  solitude  ;  for  the 
detachment  and  isolation  in  which 
he  might  find  himself;  for  he  dis 
covered  that  though  he  knew  hosts 
of  people,  he  had  never  met  him 
self  face  to  face.  He  remembered 
the  noble  breadth  of  the  landscape 
in  the  mountain  region  where  John 
Foster  lived  ;  he  made  his  way  to 
he  found  an  un- 


**—      > 

m 

A   CHILD    OF  NATURE 

occupied  house;  with  a  faithful 
servant  and  a  few  books  he  lighted 
the  fire  on  the  old  hearthstone  and 
set  himself  to  search  his  heart  to 
the  bottom,  to  understand  his  own 
spirit  and  to  learn  what  tool  life 
meant  to  put  into  his  hand  and 
what  work  he  was  to  do. 
The  silence  and  loneliness  of  the 
country  oppressed  him  at  first,  for 
he  had  never  been  alone  before ; 
but  the  splendour  of  the  autumn 
touched  his  imagination  as  if  some 
great  presence,  itself  unseen,  were 
putting  on  coronation  robes.  There 
were  days  of  such  ripeness  and  har 
mony  of  sky  and  earth  and  air  that 
it  seemed  as  if  Nature  were  making 
her  vast  spaces  splendid  for  the  en- 
[  I09J 


A    CHILD    OF   NATURE 


throning  of  some  invisible  spirit. 
In  such  a  radiant  calm,  with  such 
softness  brooding  over  the  fields, 
and  such  majesty  sleeping  on  the 
hills,  the  stage  seemed  too  noble 
for  the  setting  of  human  life,  with 
its  few  years  and  its  pathetic  uncer 
tainties.  Ralph's  thoughts  passed 
from  himself  to  the  beauty  of  the 
world,  and  he  began  to  feel  the  in 
ward  peace  which  comes  with  that 
self-forgetfulness  which  is  the  begin 
ning  of  self-knowledge.  Emptied 
of  all  egoism,  there  was  room  in  his 
spirit  for  Nature,  and  Nature  brought 
her  repose,  her  sanity,  her  deep  un 
consciousness.  It  is  in  such  moods 
that  the  finer  influences  search  and 
find  us  ;  it  is  in  such  moods,  when 
[no] 


A    CHILD    OF   NATURE 

we  are  not  empty  and  passive,  but 
harmonious  with  the  highest  and 
truest  in  thought  and  life,  that  the 
great  inspirations  breathe  upon  us 
and  the  invisible  chords  yield  the 
music  which  appeals  to  us  with  the 
warmth  and  colour  and  passion  of 
the  human  and  the  pure  and  thrill 
ing  intimations  of  the  divine.  It 
may  have  been  a  fancy,  but  in  that 
mood  of  sensitiveness  to  the  most 
subtle  and  delicate  influences  Ralph 
felt  himself  touched  and  quieted  by 
the  air  of  the  house ;  as  if  within 
those  bare  walls  there  lingered 
some  spiritual  energy  which  had 
survived  the  passing  of  the  mortal 
frame  from  which  it  issued.  This 
fanciful 


A    CHILD    OF   NATURE 


impression  was  so  persistent  and 
definite  that  the  solitary  student 
sought  out  those  who  knew  the 
earlier  occupants  of  the  house, 
and  he  was  not  slow  to  discover 
that  among  them  all  his  concern 

"•H 

was  with  the  silent  man  who,  with 
in  a  brief  half  year,  had  sat  before 
the  same  hearth  and  looked  out 
of  the  same  windows  to  the  hills 
sweeping  in  a  vast  circle  to  the 
north  and  east.  Not  much  was 
told  him,  but  that  little  was  enough  ; 
for  the  few  and  hard  facts  were 
significant,  and  there  was  more  in 
the  silence  of  those  who  were  ques 
tioned  than  in  the  reports  they 
gave.  And  Ralph's  imagination 
was  quickened  as  he  recalled  the 

[112] 

till 


A    CHILD    OF  NATURE 

vanished  life,  and  reconstructed  the 
image  of  the  vanished  personalty, 
by  the  interpretation  of  the  house 
and  garden.  The  air  of  the  old 
house,  mellowed  by  the  long  habit 
of  a  man  of  hidden  genius ;  the 
|  simple  furnishings,  supplemented 
by  the  presence  of  a  few  books 
of  the  kind  which  illumine  the 
place  where  they  are  gathered  and 
reveal  the  affinities  and  interests  of 
the  spirit  to  which  they  have  min 
istered,  plied  the  imagination  of 
the  sensitive  student  who  had  fallen 
heir  to  this  rich  heritage  of  simple 
living  and  high  thinking  with  sub 
tle  but  searching  hints  of  a  mind  to 
which,  in  its  deep  repose,  the  whole 
world  of  spiritual  experience  had 
C83  [»3] 


A    CHILD    OF   NATURE 


ministered.  Ralph  had  travelled  far 
and  sought  truth  at  the  ends  of  the 
earth ;  here  had  lived  and  died  one 
to  whom  truth  had  come  by  force 
of  those  deep  affinities  by  which 
the  soul  reaches  out  and  draws  to 
itself  the  things  which  are  its  own. 
When  the  nights  lengthened  and 
the  world  was  wrapped  in  the  si 
lence  of  those  vast  snowfalls  which 
descend  out  of  hidden  skies  with 
a  hush  that  shuts  man  in  with  his 
deepest  self  by  the  blazing  fire, 
the  spirit  of  John  Foster  seemed 
to  pervade  the  house,  as  if  seeking 
every  inlet  into  a  consciousness  akin 
to  its  own,  and  swift  to  comprehend 
what  all  others  had  been  slow  to  un 
derstand.  Ralph  felt  as  if  a  pathetic 

ni 


r^ 

L\M&fl/i 


A   CHILD    OF  NATURE 


appeal  were  being  made  from  one 
who  had  found  freedom  of  utter 
ance  after  the  long  silence  of  a  life 
time,  but  was  not  quite  at  rest  for 
longing  to  speak  in  the  language 
of  those  who  thought  him  dumb 
when  his  whole  nature  was  aglow 
with  thought  and  his  whole  heart 
aflame  with  love. 


XIII 


.   .  .   Thoughts  whose  very  sweetness  yieldeth  proof 
That  they  were  born  for  immortality. 


XIII 

IT  was  in  mid-winter  —  the 
world  afar  off  and  his  old  life 
withdrawn  and  lying  like  a  mist 
on  the  horizon  —  that  Ralph  came 
upon  the  records  of  Foster's  spirit ; 
the  faint  and  disconnected  trac 
ings  of  his  inarticulate  experience. 
Broken  and  fragmentary  as  they 
were  he  swiftly  deciphered  them ; 
for  the  key  to  their  meaning  was  in 
his  mind.  He  read  the  loose  sheets 
with  an  interest  which  deepened 
into  passionate  sympathy  and  com 
prehension  ;  he  retraced  Foster's 
long  journey  through  the  marvel- 
C'»9] 


^    CHILD    OF  NATURE 

lous  world  which  had  gradually  un 
folded  about  him,  noting  the  broad 
ening  outlook,  the  clarifying  vision, 
the  penetrating  thought.  As  he 
read  it  seemed  as  if  he  were  living 
again  in  his  own  experience  this 
hidden  life,  reaching  out  in  the 
silence  of  quiet  years  for  the  most 
far-reaching  kinships  with  the 
movement  of  universal  thought,  and 
bringing  itself  into  deep  and  final 
harmony  with  the  spiritual  order. 
As  he  penetrated  into  the  secret 
history  of  this  solitary  human  soul, 
sounding  its  perilous  way  without 
companionship  across  the  deeps  of 
life,  the  image  of  Foster  became 
more  distinct  and  real  and  the  path 
he  had  taken  more  clear  ;  until  the 

C 


A   CHILD    OF  NATURE 

living  was  not  possessed  by,  but  in 
possession  of,  the  spirit  of  the  dead. 
There  was  no  subjugation  of  per 
sonality,  no  passive  surrender  to 
another  will ;  there  was  complete 
sympathy  and  perfect  compre 
hension. 

In  Parkman's  rich  but  unrational- 
ised  experience  the  story  told  by 
Foster's  notes  was  a  torch  held  aloft 
in  a  dim  treasure-house  rilled  with 
things  of  priceless  value  brought 
together  from  the  ends  of  the  earth, 
but  lying  in  confusion,  without  the 
illumination  of  order  or  light.  Its 
effect  upon  his  unripe  intelligence 
was  like  the  quickening  of  the  sun 


A   CHILD    OF  NATURE 

to  swift  and  clear  maturity;  he 
knew  what  was  in  his  own  spirit, 
he  discerned  the  specific  meaning 
of  Nature  and  art  and  history  for 
him,  he  comprehended  his  relations 
to  the  complex  world  about  him, 
and  he  saw  by  a  lightning  flash  of 
intelligence  what  he  was  to  do  and 
with  what  tools  he  was  to  work. 
This  experience,  for  a  man  of  his 
type,  was  not  unusual ;  sensitive 
spirits,  whose  growth  is  completed 
by  the  extension  of  the  imagination 
to  the  very  limits  of  knowledge  and 
experience,  are  always  coming  into 
possession  of  themselves  by  the  in 
terpretation  of  other  and  more  ma 
ture  spirits  ;  and  acquaintance  with 
creative  minds  registers  our  own 


A    CHILD    OF  NATURE 


self-development.  The  constant 
service  of  Homer,  Dante,  Shake 
speare  and  their  fellows  is  the  lib 
eration  which  they  accomplish  in 
other  minds. 

That  which  was  peculiar  in  Park- 
man's  experience  and  gave  it  dra 
matic  interest  was  the  resurrection 
of  a  buried  soul  which  it  effected. 
Having  discerned  the  spiritual  vis 
ion,  the  intellectual  richness  of  Fos 
ter's  life,  it  became  his  first  duty  to 
share  these  lost  treasures  with  a 
world  which  is  never  too  opulent 
in  these  ultimate  forms  of  wealth. 
Before  he  could  uncover  the  springs 
of  his  own  genius  the  disciple  felt 
the  searching  necessity  of  setting 
forth  the  teaching  of  the  master. 


A    CHILD    OF   NATURE 

It  was  a  work  of  piety  and  of  joy  ; 
there  was  in  the  doing  of  it  the 
same  tender  and  passionate  delight 
which  sometimes  came  to  the 
copyist  in  the  scriptorium  of  the 
monastery  when,  with  rich  em 
bellishment  of  trailing  vine  and 
blossoming  flower,  he  gave  new 
form  to  some  old  scripture  ;  adding 
nothing  which  was  foreign  to  the 
text,  but  evoking  its  hidden  truth  in 
fair  images  and  fragrant  traceries 
which  interpreted  to  the  eye  what 
the  mind  read  in  the  bare  lettering. 
In  like  manner,  and  with  a  kindred 
joy,  Ralph  Parkman  wrought  the 
miracle  of  resurrection  on  John  Fos 
ter's  detached  and  unripe  thoughts  ; 
mere  seeds  of  ideas,  hard  and  bare 


IBS 


... 


A    CHILD    OF    NATURE 


and  cold  ;  and  yet  husbanding  all 
the  potentialities  of  life  and  beauty 
in  them.  Upon  this  rude  text 
Parkman  worked  with  the  loving 
skill  of  a  monastic  scribe  ;  and  these 
dormant  seeds,  in  the  warm  soil  of 
his  imagination,  yielded  their  secret 
and  imperishable  vitality. 
It  was  a  little  book  which  finally 
went  forth  in  the  early  summer 
from  the  old  house,  but  it  was  very 
deep  and  beautiful ;  like  a  quiet 
mountain  pool,  it  was  far  from  the 
dust  and  tumult  of  the  highways, 
and  there  were  images  of  stars  in  it. 
With  the  generosity  of  a  fine  spirit, 
the  young  man  interpreted  the  life 
of  the  older  man  through  the  rich  at 
mosphere  of  his  own  temperament 


A   CHILD    OF  NATURE 

and  with  the  clear  vision  of  his  own 
genius ;  but  there  was  nothing  in 
the  beautiful  flowering  and  fruitage 
which  the  world  received  from  his 
hand  which  was  not  potentially  in 
the  mind  and  heart  of  John  Foster. 
The  silent  man  had  come  to  his 
own ;  for  God  had  given  him  a 
voice.  After  the  long  silence  of  a 
lifetime  he  spoke  in  tones  which 
vibrated  and  penetrated,  not  like 
great  bells  swung  in  unison  in  some 
high  tower,  but  like  dear,  familiar 
bells  set  in  old  sacred  places,  whose 
sweet  notes  are  half-audible  music 
and  half-inaudible  faith  and  prayer 
and  worship.  At  first  there  were 
few  to  listen,  for  the  tones  were  low 
and  the  noise  of  the  time  was  great ; 


"« 


A   CHILD    OF  NATURE 

but  in  the  end  every  man  comes  to 
his  own,  and  John  Foster  found 
here  and  there  one  who  heard  and 
understood ;  and  as  the  years  went 
by  the  few  became  many,  and  the 
life  sown  in  secret  bore  harvest  in 
the  wide  field  of  the  world. 
And  the  two  never  parted  com 
pany  ;  for  as  the  horizon  began  to 
kindle  with  Ralph  Parkman's  fame, 
there,  set  like  a  steady  flame,  in  the 
dawn  of  a  great  new  time,  men  saw 
the  star  of  John  Foster's  pure  and 
radiant  spirit. 


V 


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LIBRARY,  UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA,  DAVIS 

Book  Slip-Series  458 


N9  821439 

Mabie,   H.W. 

A  child  of  nature 


PS2353 
C5 


LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
DAVIS 


